Journey to Recovery from Childhood Abuse

Facing Reality in Your Life

This week, I am discussing my reaction to the following quote from Ayn Rand’s book, Atlas Shrugged:

Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. Atlas Shrugged, p. 418

The “disastrous consequences” for me often seem to be insomnia, frustration, unrest, anxiety, anger, and depression. Because I believe the distorted reality, I think that if I just put more energy into this path, I will push through the barriers and reach a place where everything is OK. The problem is that X is never going to lead to Y if X is actually Z. I am awakening to the realization that in just about every area of my life, I have bought into lie upon lie, which is why I continue to stay so frustrated in so many areas of my life.

The areas of my life that do not frustrate me are those that I have already worked through, the biggest being my child abuse history. I am not saying that I am “over” healing – that day will never come – but I know how to process each layer of healing as it arises. This process does not frustrate me. It wears me out sometimes, but I know that all of my hard work is leading me to a better place, so I do not typically get frustrated by it.

I am also no longer frustrated in my friendships. For many years, I struggled with being a friend to people who only saw me as an acquaintance. I would pour more and more energy into the friendship without receiving much back, which frustrated the h#$% out of me. As I have grown emotionally healthier, I have drawn healthier people to fill the friendship role. I am also better about observing my friends’ behavior and building my expectations based on their actions rather than their words.

These were two big areas of my life that used to frustrate the h#$% out of me but do not any longer, and I got from Point A to B by going through the painful work of removing my filters and facing reality. It was very hard in both situations, but the payoff was HUGE. Now I need to work through this process in other areas of my life, which is daunting.

I only know how to commit fully, whether it is to a person, a job, or a hobby. I am either “in” or “out.” I do nothing “half @$$.” (That is probably an aftereffect of the child abuse as well.) Either I care or I don’t, and if I care, I care enough to give it my best effort.

As I open my eyes to reality, I am going to have to figure out how not to be so “all or nothing.” The reality is that most people do not seem to be like me in this regard, and there is a place for putting in some effort (as with a relationship with an acquaintance versus a friend) so that my effort matches the other person (personal relationships) or entity (professional relationships).

3 Responses

I had a discussion about the all or nothing thing the other day. It did used to be best for me and I liked it when that was best. It is no longer best for me.

i am just as committed to my 50 sq foot garden as I was my 3000 sq foot garden. The 3000 sq ft garden was good for then and my 50 sq foot good for now.

I am just as committed to healing now as I ever was how I do it has changed and it is easier although seems to take as much of our time.

As an environmental consultant I was known as the one to take the really difficult sites. I am morphing into not doing them anymore. Thing is the easy sites are really really easy for me from my experience with the difficult ones.

This is something I have noticed. I like the mornings, through out my life other people have purported that getting up early is a virtue and those who do not are somehow less than those of us that get up early.” I never saw it that way. There was also some sort of competition in who got up the earliest which I got sick of. Here is the thing. Those that reveled in the getting up is a virtue thing now are getting up later as “they learned better” so that is the new virtue. Really it is the same. “What I do is best.”

Now I still like to get up early. I do not jump in the shower and head off to work. I get up and go for a swim. Best for now.

I am in the middle of a new way of healing which is to get up and if I get around to it do something else. I am doing it until Sept 1st. It is scary. It is not terrifying it is scary. One thing I am learning is doing as little as possible does not leave as much time as I thought. Think going on vacation and doing nothing so you work twice as hard before you leave and twice as hard as when you get back.

I think and believe that much which is labeled as a symptom is really my reptilian brains telling me both to rest and that I must push harder. The reason this is an issue is this body needed to learn to rest as it never really had. I think and believe that the staying present model is flawed in that it assumes a body that has known rest that it needs to get back to rather than discover a way to experience rest.

I am committed to being the most rested person on this planet. This kinda started 8 years ago when all this body could do was to rest and relax really really hard.

Unprocessed trauma and the physical effects of trauma was what made rest and sleep not possible. I had to deal with both.

For me and I think and feel it is reasonable to assume that the lack of sleep that is often attributed to symptoms is really a result of having experienced trauma and that trauma has not been processed in a new way. Blaming the lack of sleep as a cause when it is a result.

I often get lazy and use the term un-processed trauma. Reality is it was processed and processed well for then. I stay away from the concept that I need to process it as an adult. The old you are safe now thing. I need to process it as a multiple as that is what we are.

I am committed to being the most rested person on this planet. This kinda started 8 years ago when all this body could do was to rest and relax really really hard.

“I am committed to being the most rested person on this planet. This kinda started 8 years ago when all this body could do was to rest and relax really really hard.” made my day!:D
as for the resting vs pushing for me this mostly results in feeling paralysed.

For me it wasnt so much refusal but rather inability. things started changing for the better when I learned about the concept of lies. Prior to that it felt like walking through a labyrinth of lies with blindfolds on. I wasnt able to “see” any lies because I had no name for it. This, in turn, meant I wasnt able to see any reality either. Exposing lies for what they are (big fat lies) is immensely liberating for me. And this blog is very helpful in this endeavour!